A large number of studies in evolutionary biology utilize phylogenetic information obtained from mitochondrial cytochrome b gene. It has been identified a potent molecule to distinguish the phylogenetic depth of different lineages to family, genus and species in molecular taxonomy1–66. A vast database of the sequences of cytochrome b gene of different animal species has accumulated in public databases such as GenBank, NCBI (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) etc. We have utilized this capacity of cytochrome b gene in establishing the identity of the origin of animal parts and product to its family, genus and species sources. The technique developed is based on a pair of universal primer that can amplify a small fragment of cytochrome b gene from a vast range of animal species.
Establishing identity of confiscated animal parts and products is a great challenge to law enforcement agencies because none of the methods available till date is too efficient to reveal the identity of animal remains beyond a reasonable doubt. Morphological markers, described for certain species allow the identification of complete specimen of animals67. However, a complete specimen is confiscated very rarely by the investigation agencies; therefore, these marker are not practical in wildlife forensics. The biochemical traits such as the bile characteristics68 blood heam analysis69,70 etc. have also been employed in wildlife forensic for identification of individual species. The difficulty of these markers are that these markers are limited in number and are rarely found in their natural forms in which these were originally described as the characteristic of a particular species.
The molecular approaches such as micro-satellite based identification71, Restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of mitochondrial genes or PCR based species specific STS markers require the prior information of the species to establish the identity72,73. These methods also need a significant amount of DNA material to be analysed. We may not have the prior information about the species origin of confiscated animal parts and product in forensics, therefore, these methods are not really useful and practical in wildlife identification. The technique invented by us is universal, therefore does not require any background information to establish the identity of any unknown confiscated remains at family, genus and species sources. Being a PCR based procedure it can be applied with trace amount of any biological material. Because the amplicon length is small (472 bp); therefore, it can work perfectly with the mutilated remains, which are commonly seized by the crime investigation agencies. It does not require the large amount of genetic material i.e. DNA to be analyzed to establish the identity, hence, can detect a minute amount of adulteration in food products. The procedure described is simple and very fast. Due to the said advantages, the procedure invented by us is most suited for forensic wildlife identification.